Note for non-Australian visitors

In Australia "Liberal" is Right-Wing Neo-Cons; economically liberal, socially repressive, tax the poor to subsidise the rich. Republican is also a good thing, as opposed to being a lackey of the British monarchy.

Posts tagged ‘Sydney’

From the man who criticises the Labor government of economic spending, comes the metaphor, you need to treat the federal budget like a household budget – but refuses to answer questions about his second mortgage.

She conceded that the family, who took out a $710,000 mortgage against their Sydney home when Mr Abbott’s pay was slashed after the 2007 election, could have done with a second income when their three daughters were young. But she had no regrets about her years as a stay-at-home mum.Source: Family claims are Labor nonsense: Margie Abbott, Samantha Maiden, Sunday Herald Sun June 26, 2011

So even on their pay, which would have put Tony Abbott in the top 1% of Australian income earners, they still failed to manage their household finances.

And this man wants to lecture Wayne Swan – World’s Best Finance Minister – about how to budget?

text by @redglitterx
additional text by Mrs Abbott
use of video and quote in no way suggests that Tony Abbott’s wife, the Chaser, Craig Reucassel, the ABC, or Tony Abbott in any way endorses the contents of this post or this blog

Despite critics attacking the Labor plan of community consultation, using US-style primaries to choose a candidate, it looks like the Liberals will jump first, in Western Sydney.

The western Sydney seat of Greenway, which is home to many different communities, no longer just the rednecks of stereotypes, previously working-class but now full of aspirationals was won by the Labor candidate by just over 700 votes. Tony Abbott blames these people for him not being Prime Minister.

Michelle Rowland narrowly beat the Liberal candidate, Jayme Diaz, a migration lawyer who arranges visas for clients, also of Filipino descent, for the seat, which is in an area where border security is a sensitive issue, but also home to a large Filipino community.

Diaz also has the backing of the Religious Right, which may prove important in an electorate which is host to the Hillsong pentacostal prosperity-doctrine based church. The member for neighbouring Macquarie, the Liberal Louise Markus, who it seems is on the board of only one organisation, that is Hillsong. So religion, apparently is a factor when choosing candidates for western Sydney seats.

A Liberal source said: The entire motivation for the discussion in the party around primaries was how do you fix the seat of Greenway. Which shows how hypocritical the Liberals are for attacking Labor for factionalism, when they are engaged in the very same behaviour themselves.

So, why bring in a US-style voting process, the same kind that have been used to mock Labor with as being out of ideas?

a US-style primary in the western Sydney seat of Greenway, one of the electorates Tony Abbott blames for his failure to snatch victory from Labor at the last federal election… will be sold as an experiment in democracy by giving the community a say in the party’s candidate to contest the next federal election.

However, party insiders say it is a calculated bid to prevent the previous candidate, Jayme Diaz, a Blacktown migration lawyer, from running again.

Why would Abbott, personally, champion a selection process that could see Diaz miss out as candidate, especially when he came so close in the previous election – unless Abbott still sees Western Sydney as the badlands populated by migrant-hating rednecks, which would be an outdated stereotype of one of the most ethnically diverse parts of Australia.

Image of Diaz, used without permission from Sydney Morning Herald, because people ask, and because there were no images in the public domain that could be found even after an extensive crawl of the web, forgive me SMH

Guest post by @greenat15, a proud Greens member (who has recently changed his handle to @greenat16)

Pondscum, what’s with that?

When I was on a recent walk, in lovely Sydney, I came across a billabong, a little stretch of water that was filled with an algal bloom – do we want for a better word than Pondscum?

I see many similarities with that primitive form of life and a certain political party. I see them both attempt to cling onto life when they are facing immense pressure to throw in the towel and give it all up. I see them both being tiny specs on the landscape, and I see them both refusing to move, refusing to adapt, refusing to change.

The Australian people hold much anger towards the Labor party, why? Because they are the same old stagnant rot that refuses to change, that recycles bad policy, bad leaders and bad ideas.

I am a 15 year old student, what does he know about politics? who is he? he can’t even vote! Well I have been involved in politics for over half my life, I live and breathe politics, I am not in the Labor party, but I am in NSW, I have seen what NSW Labor has done to this state and it ain’t good.

It’s understandable that the people are upset with Labor. It’s understandable that the Labor brand is dying. It’s true that Australians hate political domination, towards the end of Howards reign there was total Labor domination in each state and territory

Then there was the Ruddslide. The inevitable win from federal Labor, a win that was theirs for the taking but with that win came the inevitable loss of the states – Western Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and finally Queensland… Gone.

Gone, because the labor governments in those states took the people for granted, they raped the land and absorbed money from the highest bidder. They had to go, and Gillard’s leadership tussle gave the people the ultimate excuse for Labor’s removal.

Gillard and the faceless factional cronies (I’m looking at you Shoppos) signed the death warrant for the Labor party across Australia, they came, they soared and they gored – relegated to facing a government of 72 seats.

State Labor has also done much to ensure that they won’t partake in a big win for a long time, let’s take NSW as an example: they had countless MPs referred to the Corruption Watchdog, they had sex scandals, they had Ministers who announced things that knew they could not deliver on; that’s where the rot comes from.

NSW is the home of the gangrenous Labor limbs, heck, we even had a name for it The NSW Disease.

The recent Queensland elections further demonstrated the publics hate for the Labor Party, they were like a sponge (well, maybe that’s not a good metaphor considering the floods they had recently), they filled the Parliament with MPs that loved asset sales and then when it came to the March 24th election they were squeezed into oblivion, their water soul was shattered into a volleyball team of MPs.

The public hate the Labor party, but it is the Labor Party itself that is to blame for the death of the Labor party…

Opinions are those of @greenat16, and do not, necessarily, reflect those of TurnLeft.